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She folded another box into shape, sealing the bottom with brown parcel tape, using her teeth to detatch it from the dwindeling roll.  Mhairi wished she had got a tape gun, the pistol gripped zippy hand held alternative to making a tangled mess when it came to packing.  It hadn't seemd worth the bother but when you kept fluffing it and having to rip the stuff back off the bax you were sealing it made more sense than this.  There was a jumbled heap of books on the bed, some sweaters and a loose stack of bills and statements.  There were three small boxes stacked up by the door and she had a roll of black rubbish bags for anything soft that would fit.  It was time to get rid of Lachlan, get him out of the house and her life for good.  If he wasn't going to come and do it himself she would just have to pack all his stuff for him.  For him.  This wasn't for him, this was for her.  She had grown bored of opening the wardrobe and seeing his clothes, of picking up things in the kitchen and realising they didn't belong to her.  She wanted his stuff gone and if he didn't want it it could go to the spastics for all she cared.  A lot of it he had aquired while he was here or they had bought together and she could have reasonably claimed to have some right of ownership but she knew what was his and what belonged to her and she would rather buy new than go on looking at it.  She recognised some of the books and odder knick knacks as having come from before.  He had trecked up to Glasgow with that stupid little van of his on a few occasions coming home with old and tatti boxes of rubbish which he would then empty all over the house and spend days showing her or just in solitary catalogue mode going through it.  She had thought he was throwing out the chaffe, thining down what seemed like a poor picking from a flea market stall to her.  No, he hadn't thrown half of it out, he had gone through it, made neat or less neat piles of it and eventualy squirreled it away round the house.  She had asked him to get rid of some of it, he never looked at most of it, it was no use, she didn't even understand what half of it was.  She had no idea where it had been hiding in Glasgow while he had wandered around Scotland pretending to be a new age traveler.  He had tried to justify it but the justification meant nothing to her.  She knew he was a hoarder of junk and knew she would have to do something about it.  He had muttered about E-Bay and there being some value in it but even he didn't seem convinced of that one.  She had taken to packing him a box every weekend for him to take to the tip.  She included some of her own junk and she had relented on some things but slowly, over time they had got rid of most of it and the house had grown tidier again.  He had still aquired things.  She wouldn't let him in the house after he had been to the tip or been shopping until she had inspected both him and the car for any sneaky aqusitions.  They didn't need a tin bath.  It was unlikely that a damp computer from a skip was ever going to work.  He couldn't physically read that many books and most of them were romance.  Nice desk but it didn't go and wouldn't fit in the house.  She dreaded to think what his house now looked like, without her to filter his habit.  All the furnature was hers, chosen by her.  Unless he asked, and even then she would fight him, he wasn't getting anything bgger than a foot stool.  They had started shopping together for furnature but even the start had been a bit of a fight.

I'm not buying a bed from a jumble sale, she had insisted.  Antique market he had corrected her.  It was all the same to Mhairi, it was second hand, someone else had used it.  This was her first house, her house, she wanted to be the first person to use the bed and everything else.  They had driven all the way here in his shakey old Volkswagon Van, Mhairi fretting and nervous the whole time.  It was a death trap that van and she hated being in it but if they were going to actualy get a bed or anything else they were going to have to bring it home somehow.  She wanted to go to the furnature shop in Dumfries but Lachlan had insisted that they go on to a weekend antique fair further into the borders.  She had agreed but had invisioned getting some decorative items for the kitchen, perhaps a picture or two to hand in her hall.  Lachlan planned to furnish the entire bedroom though with seconf hand stuff,.  Sorry, antiques.  She couldn't understand the apeal of having furnature that was old, pre worn, falling appart.  It was the kind of thing her parents did and inevitably they paid over the odds for things that didn't work properly, were the wrong colour to go with everything else or fell appart within a week.  There was no value in it for Mhairi.  She was right, when they got there it looked like a car boot sale.  People were selling thigs out of the back of vans in what was obviously a car park.  There was a large cattle shed as well with folding tables and makeshift stalls, she imagined she could still smell cow shit and was sure that anything they did buy would allways smell of cow shit.  They comprimised.  Lachlan found a tall boy that he liked.  It was a golden brown with dark discolouration at the bottom of one side.  Mhairi inspected it criticaly, the best she had to say was that it didn't have wood worm.  He paid way too much for it, nearly as much as she had laid aside for the entire bedroom.  The guy from the stall helped him load it into the back of the camper.  Mhairi felt her heart sink, the van seemed to be way too low at the back now.  She asked him if it was safe but didn't feel better after his careful reasurance.  She made him stop on the way back through Dumfries so that she could arrange to have a bed delivered to the house.  They looked together but Lachlan sulked and agreed to everything she suggested.  Eventualy she plumped for a cast iron bed stead with a decent firm matress, she talked the salesman into a feel good discount for cash.  She gave Lachlan a "that's the way to do it" look and they headed home to spend one extra night sleeping on a mattress on the floor donated by her parents.  

The tallboy hadn't stayed.  Too big to squeeze up the stairs it had lurked darkly in the hall for months.  She had been wrong about the price being too high thoug, Lachlan had sold it for half again as much as it cost to an English couple in the village.  The irritation she had felt at being dragged all over the country in Lachlan's van faded fast as well.  When the bed arrived they made up properly.  Lachlan had been a sensitive and considerate lover, he made her feel good about her self.  She enjoyed his touch and his attention.  Mhairi had been convinced of their happiness and security, they had shared an amiable life.  Lachlan had pottered around, he had done most of the work on the house, he had refurbished the tallboy and after that had aquired other pieces of second hand furnature.  He hadn't kept any of them but usualy made a small profit, more than enough to cover materials, enough to make a reasonable contribution to the houshold income.  She didn't know when it had started to go wrong.  It wasn't a relationship based on flaming pasion, there were no constant declarations of love and devotion.  He hadn't made her lose her mind with desire and she assumed that she didn't inspire that feeling in him it was just that they had seemed to fit together at the edges.  They didn't anoy each other, he wasn't an irratent.  It was good knowing he was here, having someone to walk with, to share the basics of life with.  They had bothed cooked and she had grown to enjoy that too.  Together they had learned to be adventurous.  Progressing from the frozen pizza, burgers and chips to preparing interesting and provocative dishes using local organic produce, herbs and spices that they had to order in as the local shops had never even heard of them.  It was fas from unique, the cult of the celebrity chef, far from a new fad, more of a long running theme stretching back to Mr Beaton and beyond, was peaking again.  The media was full of men in black and white checked trousers getting physical with a pestle and mortar, Delia showed us how to boil an egg with elegance and class.  Although they couldn't deny the inspiration behind the cooking revolution going on in their lives some deep snobery present in them both forced them to go beyond popular cook books.  They searched for and aquired strange domestic manuals for young wives in seconf had book shops, they collected verbal recipies atributable to someones mother.  They had found suppliers who were willing to sell them small amounts all be it at premium prices.  They had tried throwing dinner parties, having people over.  Feeding their friends within an inch of their lives.  It had some value, to see people's faces light up at that first taste, to be able to accept compliments knowing that you agreed with the high opinion being expressed but ultimatley they enjoyed feeding each other.  Cooking and eating was at it's best when they were alone.  It was a personla and private experience that she felt only her and Lachlan could understand.  She wondered if he cooked with someone else now or if he had some well equiped kitchen all to himself.  She couldn't bare to think of him sharing that with another woman.

She was convinced now that he had shared something with at least one other woman.  Hindsight was always clear and cold but she should realy have recognised the signs at the time.  Mhairi had quit her job at the factory in favour of a nice clean warm and most importantly less ofensively odiferous position with Dr Ross.  She enjoyed the fact that she could walk to work in less than five minutes.  She could could think without having to scream.  She didn't have to put up with a constant stream of cack handed short timers staying barely long enough to learn the job.  That she didn't have to get up at dawn or work compulsory overtime shifts when things got busy.  The surgery was a little pool of calm compared to the factory floor even at the busyest times.  Lachlan would get home before her and by the time she got there he would be clean and sweet smelling, he would at the very least figured out what they could eat if not actualy have made her something.  She loved having someone to come home to and would hold his warm body to hers the moment she walked in.  He would wrap her up in those long arms, lift her slightly off the floor to kiss her nose.  It was a happy time, she was satisfied with her life.  There hadn't been a sudden change, it had crept up.  He seemed less tolerant of her, he would look at her with iritation if she asked anything of him beyond what he was already doing.  He snapped at her.  Lachlan had allways been patient and understanding and she knew that sometimes she asked a little much.  She had made an effort not to attack him for habits that were obviously ingrained but as much as she backed off from any confrontation he seemed to quicken in finding fault.  She hadn't been sure at the time what she had done wrong, looking back now though she wondered if he was growing away from her then.  He began to avoid her in the house.  If she were in the kitchen, he would be in the living room in front of the TV.  If she were to go through and join him he would make some excuse to go elsewhere.  Into the kitchen to spend hours making a snack or out to the shed to mess with his tools and his pots of paint.  They didn't have the most exhausting sex life.  Perhaps once a week, perhaps less they would share something special for dinner, unspoken lust would creep into their normaly more comfortable and relaxed cuddles.  They knew each other, there were few surprises and fewer disapointments.  When they didn't make love though they always went to bed together, he would hold her in his arms as she relaxed into sleep.  Again there wasn't a sudden or dramatic change but he didn't allways come to bed with her anymore.  He would stay up on his own and watch late night telivision or have one last job to do when she was too tried to remain awake.  More and more she found her self turning over and over in cold sleeplessnes in that empty bed.  That had hurt.  She had looked closely at herself.  Was she unatractive?  Did she wear dodgy pyjamas?  She had asked him to come to bed with her, tried to tell him he was hurting her but he hadn't seen it as a problem.  He claimed not to be tired, told her she was welcome to stay up with him.  She knew now, knew that was when she had lost him.  What could she have done diferently?  How could she have made him keep loving her?  She couldn't see the answer to that yet, she doubted she ever would.  He had taken extra shifts.  When she got home she didn't know if he would be there or not.  She would have to make up the fire herself, make something for them both to eat.  When he did get home he would stink of stale seafood and be too tired to talk much.  She would put out something to eat for him, they didn't even eat together anymore.  Thinking about it had he allways smelled of work?  She couldn't tell, she didn't like to go close enough to smell him before he had had a shower, changed his clothes.  He washed his own clothes.  She hadn't understood why he wanted all the overtime, it wasn't as if they were particularly short of money, she had wondered if he was saving up for something, perhaps a van to replace the one she had made him get rid of.  Not long after the first time he stayed out all night, claiming it was a men only birthday party for one of his friends at work, he had phoned her late to say he wasn't coming home as he was to drunk and skint to get a taxi, she had found a condom in his pocket.  For some reason she had washed his clothes, she despised the smell and had held her breath and stuffed them all straight in the machine.  Only when she started unloading it did she realise she hadn't checked the pockets and a tissue or some other paper had exploded all over his dark work clothes.  She cursed, inspecting the frgments and hoping it wasn't anything important.  There was a wad of stuff in the pocket of his jeans, it may at one point have been letters, a bill or just reciepts but now it was a solid mass of paper.  Breaking it open to check what it had been the bashed and creased foil wrap had falled out.  Durex sensitive.  He didn't use condoms with her, she was on the pill.  She hadn't lost the place with him.  She had gathered all the fragments and lumps of whatever had been in his pocket with the condom and left the pile on the kitchen table.  When he had come home she had apologised for not checking his pockets, chided him slightly for not washing his own smelly clothes and watched his face carefully for some hint of guilt.  He hadn't even looked at the white and pink blobs on the table.  He had put the kettle on and asked if there had been any money.  God he had played it cool.  She had been convinced at the time, certain there was nothing in it and unable then to mention the condom then without starting a fight.   He hadn't touched it, had shown any desire to look, there was nothing about him that suggested any guilt.  He had asked her to throw it away and gone for a shower.  How had she let him away with it, thinking back he hadn't met her eyes throughout the whole conversation.  There might not have been any obvious guilt but ther had been avoidance, denial and she hadn't seen it.  She had been so intent on the few possiblities she thought existed, prepared for his story of messing around at work or getting it for someone else or picking it up somewhere.  She had expected to judge his alibi, but he just hadn't had one.  She thought he might have tried to snatch it up, check if she had seen but no, he had feigned disinterest.  She felt like she had been taken in by a deliberate and calculated lie.  It was possible though that he didn't know, had forgotton.  He was perfectly capable of doing the most dizzy things, like leaving important shit in the pocket of his trousers after leaving them in front of the washing machine.  Devious or stupid?  She couldn't tell.

Mhairi went out to the shed.  He had bought the shed second hand.  Who ever heard of a second hand shed?  The shed had been standing in someones back garden, in the way of an extension or conservatory or something.  He had paid £50 cash on the understanding that he took it away himself.  He had gone over one Saturday morning with a hammer and a pinch bar and taken it to pieces with the utmost care.  They didn't have a vehicle big enough to haul it back here but he had made some arrangement for one of the local boys to load it into a trailer on the back of one of the many tractors that plied the roads around the village.  Once he had it all leaned up against the wall of the house she had noticed that Lachlan had extracted a bonus from the deal, the shed had contained someone else's junk and he had packed that up as well in three big boxes and brought it along.  She had given up on the whole project at that point.  The idea of him getting a shed was that he could move his junk out of the kitchen and put it in an apropriate environment.  He would have somewhere to work where any mess wouldn't spoil the work he had already done on decorating the house.  She couldn't see the point if the shed already came full of extra junk for him to play with.  She had gone inside, pretending not to watch as he carefully and precisely braced the sides, the ends of the shed once screwed in place gave the box some rigidity.  Mhairi couldn't see how he was going to get the roof on without her help.  The roof consisted of two large flat panels once joined in the middle and covered in tarred felt.  They looked heavy.  She put on some coffee and waited for him to come to her and ask for a hand.  It was taking him a while.  Pride? she wondered.  She looked outside, he had one panel in place and was fastening it to the top edge of the walls.  There was a complicated arangement of ladders leaning against the side of the shed, lengths of blue nylon rope lay on the ground.  She sighed, guessed he didn't need her for this bit either.  He loved this little shed, painted it once a year, patched up the roof, lined it inside to keep out the draught.  It was his shed but there was no way she could pack it up and send it to Glasgow.  She could however pack his tools.  She freed the padlock and swung open the door.  Oh god what a mess.  This could take some time.